Every week or so there is a new post here, on Freenode IRC #gentoo-sparc, or in the #gentoo-sparc mailing list expressing frustration with configuring xorg-x11 to play nicely with a sun type5 (or type6, type5C, or so on) keyboard (or with a sun mouse). Part of the difficulties arise because xorg.conf is not compatible between kernels for keyboards and mice. First of all, before posting configuration difficulties, please keep the following points in mind:

With kernel 2.4, xorg-x11 must be built on a kernel 2.4 system.

With kernel-2.4:

Your keyboard driver must be 'keyboard';

Your keyboard looks like a sun keyboard to xorg;

Your mouse is /dev/sunmouse;

Your mouse's protocol is Mousesystems.

With kernel 2.6:

It's better to use the 'kbd' driver (although if you build on kernel-2.6, keyboard and kbd are the same);

If after reviewing all of that you still have problems, go ahead and ask. But be aware that to get a meaningful response, you should indicate (1) your kernel version; (2) relevant portions of your xorg.conf file; (3) anything that looks interesting or unusual in your /var/log/Xorg.?.log (usually, '?' = 0).

Tip: Aborts (like Signal 11) in the log file are interesting. But the following, while alarming, is expected and normal if you have kernel-2.4:

Code:

(EE) LoadModule: Module keyboard does not have a keyboardModuleData data object.
(II) UnloadModule: "keyboard"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/modules/input/keyboard_drv.so
(EE) Failed to load module "keyboard" (invalid module, 0)
......
(WW) *** WARNING the legacy keyboard driver "keyboard" is deprecated
(WW) *** and will be removed in the next release of the Xorg server.
(WW) *** Please consider using the the new "kbd" driver for "Keyboard0".

(Indeed, with kernel-2.4, the absence of such lines is interesting; please make sure you are not using kernel-2.4 + 'kbd' driver before doing anything else.)

Sorry to beat this to death, but keyboard/mouse xorg configutation continues to be a frustration on kernel-2.4. "Any day now" kernel-2.6 will become stable and default for sparc, and we can all forget about this sort of problem.
Regards,

A brief update: There have been several questions about type6 keyboards, etc. So: I currently have a U60-SMP Linux antaresia.inforead.com 2.4.29-sparc #3 SMP Fri Apr 22 12:30:22 UTC 2005 sparc64 sun4u TI UltraSparc II (BlackBird) GNU/Linux running xorg-x11-6.8.99.3 and using a Sun type(6) keyboard, Elite (afb) framebuffer. The xorg.conf file is unchanged: it calls the keyboard a type(5). Everything works as expected, which is to say, correctly.

If you have a similar setup but are experiencing difficulties, please review carefully your xorg.conf file and your kernel .config file. And make sure that xorg-x11 is using the configureation file you think it should be --- that information is at the top of your /var/log/Xorg.0.log, and if you keep variants of your xorg configuration file around, you might be surprised at which one xorg-x11 decides to use (hint: xorg.conf is not it's first choice; it prefers xorg.conf-6 and who knows what else).

Could you please write something about the requirements concerning the kernel?

Because my mouse is not working anymore since my last portage upgrade. Kernel was 2.6.11-r4 and I had been using the sermouse module, device /dev/input/mouse0 and Protocol "Auto". Now I've tried to use the mouse as you described: Protocol "IMPS/2", device /dev/input/mice and I've loaded the psmouse module instead of sermouse. But it doesn't work either.

edit: hell, I don't know what's wrong with this stuff, but I've checked a lot of combinations of drivers/settings yesterday and today in the morning and at the end I gave up and set everything the way I had it before: sermouse, Protocol "Auto", device /dev/input/mouse0 - and then it worked. Now I'm so confused.

The 'deprecated keyboard' requirement is going away thanks to Matthias Muthmann of X.org. The official patch appears to be in CVS version 16. However, there is also available a Gentoo-specific patch at https://bugs.gentoo.org Bug 61940, patchid=63633. If you wish to try this out, please see that Bug and follow the instructions at Comment 24.

As you will notice, the patch is almost trivial, but it works fine.

And indeed, with xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6, xorg-x11-6.8.99.15-r3, the "fix kbd driver" patch is incorporated into the release itself, and if you run either of these versions of xorg-x11 (or newer versions), the deprecated driver comments are now irrelevant.

Regards,

Last edited by Ferris on Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:50 pm; edited 1 time in total

Just a little info: since upgrading to 2.6.13.2 my mouse problems are gone completely. Before I still had to unplug the mouse while X was starting and than replugged it when it was up. This was the only way to get the mouse working. But now everything's going perfect here.

there are now 2 options for me :
I was happy with Kernel 2.4, can I get xorg 6.8.2-r1 back ?
Or
how big can a kernel become ? Well, I have no glue about this.
I thougt silo was first load an initial loader, which then loads the kernel, due to that a kernel
would be too big.

Any hint welcome,
Cheers,
Frank_________________always look at yellow site of Linux on the PPC.
Its PPCNUX.

A couple things:
First, x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 should run fine with this kernel: 2.4.31-sparc-r2 --- you just don't get the deprecated keyboard driver anymore, because problem with the kbd driver is fixed. I can verify that 6.8.2-r6+kernel 2.4.31-r2 work just fine on U2, U60 systems, and don't see why U5 should be a problem. Here's how I configure a sun type keyboard:

Second: No, you can't get 6.8.2-r1 back unless you happened to have built a package from it (e.g., emerge -b ...)
Third: kernel-2.6.13 (or, at least 2.6.xx) is known to run fine on U5; quickest way to get datails is to ask on #gentoo-sparc freenode IRC channel.

Easiest solution is to keep whatever kernel you like, and adjust the keyboard InputDevice section for the keyboard as necessary.
Hope this helps,

With the later xorg-server stuff, keyboard and mouse are no longer necessary. Simply emerge evdev and make sure you set up your keyboards in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/. It's amazing how easy it is to set up nowdays._________________Cheers,
Alex.